The Military Hospital and the Apothecary

The Government decided to use the Island of San Servolo, seat of an ancient abandoned monastery, to set up a military hospital    

Among the religious who settled in San Servolo in 1716 there were the father prior, two surgeons, some male nurses, the chaplain and the apothecary

The countless works of chemistry, botany and medicine preserved in the San Servolo library  (more than 8000 volumes) testify to the solid scientific culture of this religious order, that managed the Hospital until 1904

In order to produce the medicines for the hospital activity, the monks create a pharmaceutical laboratory on the island, cultivating the officinal herbs   

In a few years the fame of the small apothecary grows to the point that in 1719 the Government grants it the exclusive right to prepare all the medicines necessary for the public militias and other privileges

The knowledge and pharmaceutical activities of the Brothers Ospitallers are attested by numerous documents preserved in the Historical Archive

The theriaca is perhaps the most famous medicine. Considered a panacea, an infallible remedy, the one produced in Venice was particularly renowned for its quality

Among the most evocative ingredients there are the bezoar, a mythical stone with extraordinary thaumaturgical powers, and the deer horn, still preserved in the Apothecary ...

While the apothecary brother perpetuated a centuries-old convent tradition of botanical gardens, the presence of the surgeon monks in San Servolo represents a real novelty

Only in the century of the Enlightenment did it rise to the role of art and the most open and cultured religious were able to access surgical schools